


The Name Game

by 14CombatGeishas



Series: You Were Probably Happier Yesterday [4]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pre-Canon, copious pop culture references, pre-Anne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 16:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12112260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/14CombatGeishas/pseuds/14CombatGeishas
Summary: Doug has some suggestions for what they should name their daughter.Plus, David Schwimmer storage, Följa, Sarah-Conner with a hyphen, and killing us with tastelessness.





	The Name Game

Doug had never been in an IKEA before.  Not that he could remember at least.  He’d been a lot of places sloshed enough that he’d forgotten them entirely, but he was pretty sure his drunken adventures had never lead him into a Swedish furniture store.  IKEA was part of this new “being a responsible adult” thing he was doing now, he wasn’t going to get baby furniture free off Craigslist.  He had the money now to buy brand spanking new and less suspect things for his baby daughter.  He was done with his terrible Pizza Hut job,  back in the Air Force, astonishing everyone who knew him with his newfound fervor and work ethic.  Hell, he was surprising _himself._  He was paying the bills and rent on time, saving for the future, putting a little away with every paycheck.  He wanted to provide for the still-unnamed baby.

Being inside IKEA was like being in a disassembled sitcom.  It was weirdly impersonal, these neat little sets of supposed living spaces, all plywood and white paint and brushed steel.  “ _This is the place where they stored David Schwimmer after_ Friends _ended,_ ” he decided about one. _“This is where they gave Michael Richards the injections that kept his racism and crazy at bay for so long during_ Seinfeld,” Doug found himself thinking as he eyeballed the nearest living room with its cabinet filled with blank DVD cases and perfectly generic art fixtures.  

He was leaning across the cart, arms crossed over the bar, walking slowly forward.  Kate was ahead of him.  She kept putting the tiny pencil idly to her lips, sometimes mouthing it like the cigarettes she could no longer have.  “What do you think, Doug?” she asked, looking back at him.  She had the list of all the new things both needed for their respective homes: cribs and changing tables and laundry bins and so on, so many things to turn his rathole apartment into something a baby could survive in.  She tucked the little golf pencil behind her ear in a single smooth motion as Doug had seen her do dozens of times in her work as a waitress.  

“Huh?” he asked, looking over at her from the artificial living room.  

“What…do…you think…Doug?” she asked more slowly, breaking the sentence into distinct parts.  

“I think they put Judy Winslow in there,” Doug answered, nodding toward a sideboard in the next display.  “That’s what happened to her.”  

“Talking to you is like talking to Pinky.  I know exactly how Brain feels,” she sighed.  

“Narf,” Doug said in dry agreement.  

“Should I repeat the question?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What is the baby’s last name going to be?” she asked, glancing back at him.  

“Oh, that’s easy: Garcia,” Doug answered.  He didn’t have any desire to pass on his last name and with Kate and him unmarried, Kate’s last name made much more sense than his.  And he had a sneaking suspicion Kate wanted it to be “Garcia.”  

“Really?  Huh…” Kate looked a little surprised.

“Huh?” he asked, “why ‘huh?’”

“No reason.”  She smiled a little to herself.  

“You’re looking mighty pleased with yourself for ‘no reason.’” He emphasized the “t” in “mighty.”  

“I was expecting it to turn into another fight.  That’s why I’ve been putting off asking you,” she answered.  

“That would be in character,” Doug rubbed his chin, the stubble making an audible scratching sound.  “We’re usually pretty Tom and Jerry.”

“Who’s who?” she asked.

“Depends on the fight,” Doug answered.  “But seriously, what would we call her besides ‘Garcia?’ ‘Eiffel?’ No way!”  They both knew Doug didn’t have any close bonds to his family.  He hadn’t seen his father since he was three, or either of his half-sisters or his mother since he was 18.  There hadn’t been a fight, but there hadn’t been much of a connection, either.  There wasn’t enough of a bond for there to have been a falling out.  He had no real love for his family and thus, none for his family name.  He didn’t dislike them, but that was the most that could be said.  While Kate hated her father, who had been abusive and died when she was a young teenager, she was extremely close to her mother and sister.  All three women had rocky relationships, but in the end, they loved each other dearly.  Garcia was a much more deserving name than Eiffel.  

“I was thinking Garcia-hyphen-Eiffel.  I was going to compromise,” Kate said.  

“Nah, you’re doing the heavy-lifting.  I just sorta…helped start the project?  I gave you the glue, you did the assembly?”

“Ew,” she wrinkled her nose.  

“Yeah, sorry about that.  I didn’t mean for it to sound so…biological.  I was shooting for more of a FlyModel vibe.”

“Don’t explain it,” Kate said.  

“I’m just saying, we don’t need to stick the ‘Eiffel’ in there,” Doug explained.  

“That’s what she said.” Kate replied, not missing a beat.  

“I should have seen that one!”  Doug slapped his forehead.  “How did I miss that?!  What is wrong with me?!  Maybe I’m coming down with something!”  

“Must be,” said Kate, “it was low hanging fruit.”  

“The lowest, like, Aziz Anasari-height fruit.”  

Kate laughed and Doug grinned at the sound of it.  She seemed so genuinely happy.  He loved seeing her like this.   

It was strange, they were a better couple broken up than they ever had been together.  The only difference between life before the baby and life now was the protracted withdrawal symptoms and the fact that they’d gotten downright sentimental about things.  They weren’t fighting anywhere near as often as they used to.  He still stayed at her apartment or she at his (she’d helped him clean it out so it was less of a toxic waste dump).  They sought comfort from the outside world and sobriety with each other.  It was far from perfect.  Doug still got reclusive and overly flippant.  Kate still shouted and broke things.  But somehow life seemed better.  Sure, Doug was sometimes positive his body and brain were coming apart _The Incredible Melting Man-_ style, but he was in reality healthier than he had been since he began drinking as a teenager.  

“Soooo, now she’s got a last name,” Doug looked over at Kate and her round belly.  “She needs a first name.” Two months ago they’d been asked if they wanted to know the sex of the baby or if they wanted to be surprised.  Without consulting one another, but answering as one, Doug and Kate both said they wanted to know.  Kate’s early suspicion, that it would be a girl, proved true.  Doug had been concocting lists of potential names since the day Kate came to his apartment with the fear that she was pregnant.  He’d been perfecting it since finding out the sex.  “She can’t stay Jane Doe Garcia.  Any ideas?” He looked at her with wide hopeful eyes that he hoped indicated he wanted the question lobbed back his way.  “’Cause I’ve got some,” he added, in case his expression wasn’t enough.  

“I don’t really have anything,” said Kate.  “I had a couple but I never ended up liking them for more than a day or so.  Maybe Rosa.  Or Rosemary.”  

“Parsley, Sage, and Thyme didn’t come up?” Doug asked.  

“One reason why I dropped it.  What have you got?” She looked over at him as a slow grin grew across his face.  “Oh no, what Hell hath I wrought?”

“Hey, hey, don’t worry!  I happen to have the best list of girls names this side of the Rio Grande,” Doug yanked his phone out of his pocket and opened the notes section, smiling broadly.  He knew that with the chronic exhaustion and the weight loss from giving up booze his boyish grins looked a little more sinister than they used to.  He cleared his throat dramatically, “Ready?”

Kate rolled her eyes, “As I’ll ever be.”  

“Well, number one on my list is obviously ‘Leia,’” he said.

“As in Princess Leia?”

“Is there any other Leia?” scoffed Doug.  

“Yes!  There’s one in the Bible that normal people name their daughters after!” Kate pointed out.  

“Oh, no.  Not her.  This is Princess Leia.  The important one.”  

“We are not naming our daughter after Princess Leia,” Kate assured him.  

“Why not?” Doug asked, trying not to whine.  

“Because we’re not!”  Kate said.  

“Ororo,” Doug tried.

“That’s an X-Man,” Kate said.

“Not just any X-Man!  Storm!  One of the coolest X-Men there is!”  

“We are trying to be _adults!_ We’re not going to name our daughter after a character from a children’s franchise!”

“Star Wars and X-Men aren’t just for kids,” grumbled Doug.  “But I’m taking Cheetara off the list.”

“Good idea,” Kate agreed.  

“Would you object to Ripley?” asked Doug.

“I would, actually.”

“Not a children’s franchise,” Doug pointed out.

“Still not naming my daughter Ripley,” Kate assured him.  They entered the baby section of the IKEA, past the showroom, onto the stacks of cribs, rows of cabinets and changing tables, lines of stuffed toys, and stacks of storage tubs.  

“If you won't let me have Star Wars maybe I’ll have to switch to the lesser of the Stars.  Uhura?  I’m pretty sure that’s a real name,” Doug said selecting a stuffed sheep off the shelf as he wandered past it.  It played soft music when a key in its side was wound and Doug lightly smiled before putting it into the cart.  

“No.”

“Not even going to think about it?” Doug asked.

“Fine, I’ll think about it.” Kate screwed up her face in mock concentration.  “Nope.  How big is the crib space in your apartment?” Kate asked, she was ahead of him running her finger along the bars of one of the cribs.   

“30 by 55,” he answered without looking up from his list.  He kept walking down the aisle toward her.  He walked past her to another crib he liked more.  “This should probably fit,” he said reading the information clipped to the side.  “We should get a white one, right?  I feel like white goes with babies.  But I want a rounded headboard, I’m not digging the sharp edges.  Do you think you could hang a mobile off of a round headboard?”

“I don’t see why not,” Kate said. “I like the round headboard, too.”  

“I think I like drawers at the bottom,” Doug said, toeing them with his sneaker.  

“I want drawers on mine at least.”  

“How about Kitty?”

“For the name?”

“Right.”

“Wouldn’t that be short for Katherine?  Which is _my_ name?”

“But hers would just be ‘Kitty.’  First name Kitty, middle name Pryde.  Kitty Pryde Garcia.”

“I said no X-Men.”

“But that knocks like ten names off my list!”

“What a shame,” Kate rolled her eyes.  

“What are the cribs you’re not supposed to get anymore?” Doug asked.

“Drop rail,” Kate answered, “these are fine.”

“And the bar distance is okay?” Doug bent down and tried to see if he could get his head between the bars.  If he could get it stuck a baby would almost certainly fall through or get caught herself.  But there was no way he could get his head in, even if he wedged it against the bars -- which he did.  

“Is it?” Kate asked.

“Yeah, seems fine,” he straightened.  “I just want to make sure it’s safe, you know?”

“I know,” Kate smiled.  “I do too.  But this stuff is all checked.”

“No comforters or pillows or anything, right?”

“Bare is best,” Kate said, repeating what they’d seen on a website about the best way to cushion baby beds.  She wrote down the crib name on her list.  “Do you want this one, too?”

“Yes,” Doug answered.  “But I want the drawers with the different colored handles.”

“Okay,” Kate said making a note in her neat almost-cursive handwriting.  

“What do you think of this diaper table?  White, too. I’m not doing any pink things.  She doesn’t need that heteronormative bullshit,” Doug said, rolling the cart forward to the next section.  

“I agree.”  

“Chel?” Doug asked.  

“I don’t agree on that.”

“Zelda?”

“No.” Kate pulled down blankets and other accoutrements off racks and added them to the cart.

“Samus,” he pulled two heavy mattresses off a shelf one at a time and piled them into the cart.  

She gave him a look.

“I’m not gonna lie, I was just looking at my video games at this point,” Doug glanced up at her.  

“I figured that out,” Kate said.  She jabbed her pencil in the direction of one of the changing tables.  “I’m going with this one, the Gulliver.  You?”  

“Följa looks like the crib, I’ll take that one. We need to get a bunch of those little rubber things to go on the edges though.  You know so they’re less sharp?”

“Oh definitely,” Kate agreed.

“Hermione.”

“Nope.”

“Arya.”

“No.”

“Matilda.”

“Were you looking at your bookshelf this time?”  Kate rolled her eyes.  They rounded a corner into high chairs.  

“Maybe,” Doug admitted.  

“What was your next theme?”

“Uh…Joss Whedon characters.  Should I just skip those?”

“Yeah, just skip those.  I can’t stand Joss Whedon, you know that.”

“I forgot, sorry,” Doug admitted.  “Not even Firefly?”

“Firefly was boring.”   

“Sacrilege!” Doug gasped.

“We’re not getting into it again!”  Kate said.  

“Fine, which high chair do you like?”

“Antilop.”

“Hey, me too!  How about Sarah-Conner with a hyphen?”

“And apparently the high chair is the only place we agree.”  

“Kara?”

“Okay…waiting for the other shoe to drop…”

“But spelled in Kryptonian characters so that people get the reference.”

“Nope!” she stepped back to smack Doug upside the head.  “No, we are not spelling our daughter’s name in a fictional alphabet.”

“Hey!” Doug complained.  He rubbed the back of his head.  “What’s wrong with my names?”

“Your names mean we’re the only ones who will ever love her.”

“Ouch.  Well, I guess we could name her after a piece of IKEA furniture.”

“Don’t even joke.”

“Antilop!”

“Dooooug.”

“Sundvik!  Vandring Igelkott!  Leka!”  

“Stoooop,” Kate mock whined.  

He kept going as they walked through the dining section towards the exit.  “Salmi.  That almost sounds like a name.”

“Ingo” Kate provided before Doug could.  

“Möckelby,” Doug said in response.

“Lerhamn.”  

“Meatballs,” Doug concluded.  

They paid for their furniture and arranged for the larger pieces to be delivered, neither one of them had a car big enough to lug them back.  Doug adjusted the seat and the mirror of Kate’s car.  He watched Kate to make sure she buckled up.  He never used to even think about it, but since Kate got pregnant he found himself suddenly more protective.  Or maybe it was the sobriety.  Whichever it was, he noticed danger more.  He checked his blind spot and pulled out.

“Seatbelt.  Car door,” he added.  “We could make it one word with a weird emphasis.  C _ar_ d oor . Card _oor_.”  

Kate laughed and shook her head.  

“Yield,” Doug said, inspired by the word written across the asphalt at IKEA’s parking lot entrance.  

“You’re such a doofus,” she said, playfully hitting him in the arm.  

He looked over at Kate again.  He still loved her smile.  Sometimes he thought about proposing to her.  Sometimes.  Then he remembered what they did to each other.  How they constantly fought.  How they tore each other apart.   When they were together they broke each other’s hearts.  They only ever hurt each other.  But still he cared about her.  He didn’t think that would ever really go away.  She would always mean something to him.  They would always be tangled up in each other’s lives.  Part of him might even love her, just like part of him might hate her.

“What?” she asked catching his eyes.

He shook his head and looked away, continuing the game instead,  “Freeway.”  

“Wow, rude!” Kate said jokingly.  “And very creepy male-gazey-slash-slut-shamey of you.”

“What?  Oh, gross!  No!  Not what I meant!  Oh God!  Ew!”  He slumped dramatically over the wheel – they had not yet merged onto the highway, waiting at the lip of the parking lot, but Doug kept his eyes on the road even during his dramatics.  That reference hadn’t been further from his mind when he recommended the joke name.  “Aaaah!”

Kate grasped him by the shoulder and straightened him up, “Don’t kill us for your tastelessness.”  

“Jetta?” he said, as he allowed himself to be pulled back into position.  A green VW was driving by them.  The girl in the passenger seat looked like a season 3 Jan Brady, freshly freed from the IKEA showroom apparently.  “First name Mini middle name Cooper.” He tried as a red example drove by.  

“No cars,” said Kate still smiling, shaking her head affectionately.  They left the lot and began down the highway back toward Kate’s apartment.  

“Okay, how about Wells Fargo?” he asked as they passed a billboard for the mortgage firm.  

“I’m pretty sure that was a real person.”

“Really?  What cruel bastard names their kid Wells?”  

“I don’t know, it was probably a jillion years ago or something.”

“That doesn’t change the ‘cruel bastard’ thing.  People used to name their kids ‘Goodie.’  Let’s see…how about…” But the next billboard was for Captain Morgan, too close to home to use as a joke.  An awkward silence fell over the two of them.  Kate watched the billboard, glaring at the smiling pirate, Doug kept his eyes on the road, his knuckles tightened on the wheel.  The road kept going.  Doug let out a sigh of relief as another sign swelled on the horizon.  A poster for the crappy new _Alice in Wonderland_ movie that Doug would almost certainly see, just because he tended to see everything.  It was a huge picture of Anne Hathaway smiling serenely at them, all in white with a pale wig and face.  

“Alice.”

“Nah, I went to school with an ‘Alice’ and she was a real bitch.”  

A pause.  Then it actually hit him.  He liked how it sounded in his head.  “I got it!”

“What?” Kate asked, “Jersey Barrier?”

“No, no, for real,” he paused for emphasis, deep breath in, “Anne.”

Kate opened her mouth then closed it.  She raised her eyebrows.  Then she smiled and nodded.  “You know what?  Yeah.  Yeah, I like it.  Anne Garcia.”

Doug grinned.  He liked it too.  The baby – Anne – was becoming more real every day, growing, developing.  So was that overwhelming warmth he’d felt when Anne moved under his hand, when he first saw her tiny shape on the sonogram, when Kate and he decided to keep the baby.  Up until Kate’s pregnancy, Doug Eiffel didn’t know life could get better than “okay.”  But at times like these it was.  Life was beautiful.  Life was good.  He was going to be a father.  He was going to have a daughter named Anne Garcia.  And he was going to make sure she was always as happy as he was right now.  

 


End file.
